A true first-hand account of slavery. This book cut me to the core. It was not so much that I didn’t know the trials I would read within, but to hear it in this voice, from this man who personally endured it, was incredibly poignant and personal. Every human being needs to read this book.

10/10 recommend

We need to acknowledge and experience the past if we are to understand the present. There are so many atrocities that have taken place in this country that we simply aren’t present to. The level of description is deafening. I was left speechless to the inhumanities these poor people went through. Solomon constantly refers to slavery as an “institution”. It required the blood of thousands of Americans to deconstruct that institution. Some might even say that institution still exists in the form of racism. The way black people are treated in this book are oddly parallel to way they are treated to this very day.

This personal diary of 12 years of slavery of the author was an excellent read for me. Raised in the South I grew up with a “mixed” perspective of slavery. My mother was a Yankee. My father experienced first hand discrimination of black and red men. He was a high ranking officer during the integration of the military in 1947-48. I observed many signs of discrimination while growing up. But never knew many of the intimate details described in this book. It should be required reading at the high school level.

Slavery ended 164 years ago. The Civil War was fought to ensure it truly was abolished. The last vestiges of social prejudice were overcome in the 1960s, in what’s called the Civil Rights movement. It’s curious why, with so many victories behind us, and the black population so upwardly mobile today, anyone wants to resurrect the dead past.